


you're just an animal trying to act real special

by TheVeryLastValkyrie



Series: and i'll be new baptised [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: And For Reasons Better Known to Herself, F/M, In Which Ren is Still a Captive, Rey is Still Feeding Him, She Sits Silent During His Tantrums and is the Hub of the Wheel Around Which His Life Revolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5564341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVeryLastValkyrie/pseuds/TheVeryLastValkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Protect the girl. Protect the girl. <b>Protect the girl.</b></i> Theirs is a symbiotic relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're just an animal trying to act real special

When the room stops shaking and is steady enough for me to stand, I find that I can’t. I’m covered with dust and pieces of ceiling, and the air is foggy and tastes bitter, but that isn’t the problem. It’s the problem which is the problem – he’s wrapped himself around me, his long forearms lying along mine, his thighs pressing mine together, a crouched, four-legged hybrid, his cheek flat on top of my head. He’s shielded me with his body, and my hands have disappeared inside his hands, and as he releases them I see they’re as perfect as they ever were, which is not perfect at all.

His fingers must be twice the length of mine. They open like flowers, and my clenched fists look like seeds inside their thin petals (and I think about flowers too much, because I forget that he can see inside my head, and flowers are relatively new to me, and I’m not sure what he can do with the fact that I think about them too much).

“Thank you.”

“You could’ve protected yourself, but you didn’t.” He sounds cold; harsh. He let chunks of blasted, broken stone bounce off his back rather than let them hit me, but he speaks to me as though I’m an idiot. “You could’ve stopped them, but you didn’t, so _I_ had to take care of it.”

Take care of me, he means. Because I’m the only one who brings him food he’ll eat. Because I’m the only person he’ll allow to sit with him. Because I’m the only person he’ll talk to, even if it’s just more about his way, the Sith way, the way I don’t want to know anything more about. His mother comes, of course, bringing her own gravity like a small composed moon. He doesn’t have anything to say to her. Maybe she makes him ashamed. Maybe he does truly hate her, but he doesn’t try to hurt her, although he does hurl whatever rations she brings him at the stained block wall.

He sounds even more like a child when he tries to be cruel to me.

“You didn’t have to protect me. I didn’t ask you to.” I didn’t ask for any of this, but I have it now. It’s a droid’s job, keeping him alive, but he won’t live long if I don’t do it, and he needs to be alive. “Thank you,” I say definitely, so I can’t take it back. “But don’t touch me again.”

We both stand up, testing our muscles, realigning ourselves with the ground, which is level but no longer parallel to the ceiling, which has caved in. I turn around, and he’s smiling slightly because of something I’ve said (though I don’t think I said anything to smile about). I don’t care. He has no weapon, and a fight in this facility would be over too quickly to be worth the effort. He doesn’t want to be tied down again. He doesn’t like it.

“You could have everything,” he tells me. “Power, glory.”

“Neither of those is ‘everything’.”

“They are. In time, you’ll see.”

“No, I won’t.” His self-assurance is always there in his voice, but I can sense it when the dark in him flickers. He can feel it too. It’s a star bursting backwards, and he feels and I see white heat, but it’s gone in a flash and it makes him angry. He destroys things when he’s angry.

He leaves my flowers, though, the pink and white ones in the bowl Poe Dameron brought me.

I keep feeding and ignoring him.


End file.
